(Originally published 06/06/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
This has been a very heavy day, and there’s a lot here. For the moment, at least, I will not try to organize this.
Darkness at times appears to serve Light; destruction, to serve creation.
It is a rude awakening for me to have to revisit the world of infantile self-centeredness, apparently to have to re-learn correctly this time (at age 57!) some things I didn’t learn correctly on the first go-round.
A world where it is correct for me to want things only for “Me, me, me!”
I have known for years that in order to get out of my predicament (I was in jobless poverty for quite some time before I ever became homeless.), I needed to develop a healthy selfishness. I had, to the best of my conscious awareness, devoted myself wholly to seeking others’ welfare, to the detriment of my own.
As simple a thing as allowing myself to want things. Want them enough to work for them. Want them enough to overcome obstacles.
It’s not that I despised material possessions; I did not value them nearly as much as I (overwhelmingly) valued relationships. What I did despise was the desire for material possessions. As a result, now I have none.
In healing prayer, it’s essential that the patient be completely selfish in seeking his or her own healing. Otherwise nothing will happen. When an active addict considers seeking recovery, it won’t work to make the effort because it’s a good idea, or for others’ sake. Only when the addict becomes able to do it from utter selfishness — “I’m doing this for me!” — will enough energy be given to the task to succeed.
So in the past few days I’ve found myself completely selfish in prayer time. Of course, my self isn’t the be-all, end-all here. The gifts God has invested in me will not profit very many people much at all so long as I remain homeless and dependent. To the end of coming into a position of being able to profit others, for now I must be completely selfish.
Then ego-centrism is not necessarily always evil, or destructive, or dark. It may be pre-requisite for one’s care for others.
I had significant depression today. Here again may darkness be serving light. In The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck says depression may represent the deconstruction of attitudes, perspectives or habits that have outlived their usefulness, so that new, adaptative ones may be constructed. The old ways may have been perfectly correct at one time, but as circumstances and one’s place in life have changed — as one grows from infancy into childhood, for example, or from childhood into adulthood — they are no longer so. Destruction serves creation.
The Beatitudes as given in Luke 6:20 … “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.The standard liberal Christian view is to take this as expressing justice. It could as easily express Tao, the Yin-Yang.The call of Jeremiah, from Jeremiah ch. 1:10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.’It’s crucial to visualize this: plucking up weeds (to destroy them), pulling down buildings (to demolish), bending down to plant (creating), building up (creating). Liberal Christianity in the last half of the 20th century over-esteemed the prophet (any prophet) as a change agent, over-esteeming change for change’s sake, as if change were always good. As if the Holy Spirit were not prana but rather Siva.The verse illustrates again rather the Yin-Yang of creation and destruction, the necessity of destruction in service of creation.
Previous pertinent posts: Jacob’s ladder 06/19/13 Sifting dichotomies From my diary: Learning to pray
(Reblogged 01/12/17.) on air talent, talk show host, radio talk show, the homeless blogger
Comments